hello, this is bbc news. the headlines: more than 2000 people have been arrested across russia during a clampdown on protests called by the jailed opposition leader alexei navaly. mr navalny�*s wife yulia was arrested, then released. senior doctors in britain call for the maximum 12 week gap between administering the first and second doses of the pfizer coronavirus vaccionation to be halved. a curfew will come into force in the netherlands tonight — as part of new measures to contain coronavirus. residents in wuhan have been marking the first anniversary of the coronavirus lockdown which saw the chinese city sealed off for more than two months. 12 months on and life in wuhan has returned to normal. the american broadcaster larry king has died at the age of eighty—seven. he had been receiving treatment for covid—nineteen in los angeles. in a career spanning six decades, larry king interviewed many

of the world's most famous people. now on bbc news... new orleans was getting ready to celebrate mardi gras. but among the crowds was a virus which before long would stop the music and kill thousands in the state of louisiana. last year, new orleans was celebrating. there was no sense in new orleans that there was anything serious. but in the crowds, there was a virus which before long would stop the music. here we are in this great tourist city and now we've come to a screeching halt. this was like being on a movie set that everybody had left. now this famous music city faces an uncertain future. 0ur government, they didn't tell us until it was too late.

and its musicians face life without the crowds they live for. it's a cultural extinction, cultural genocide. february in new orleans is supposed to be mardi gras season, everybody's in a good mood, partying. the bars are open, a great place to have a good time. mardi gras is like an everyday party, and it's free. it's the greatest free party on earth. last year, mardi gras brought over a million tourists to the streets of new orleans. to me, it's about family and friends and celebration and about love. mardi gras day, we

always have upstairs. sophie lee runs a restaurant with live music in the city's famous french quarter. so there's my kids, my friends' kids... you could imagine, it's pretty messy. but gloriously messy. the actual mardi gras season isjust a part of a long tradition. trombone player delfeayo marsalis is part of the city's most famous musical family. we grew up in new orleans. my father ellis played piano. my eldest brother branford played saxophone, quentin plays trumpet. yeah, if you love music, you should definitely know what's happening down here in the crescent city. it really does electrify that inner beast in people, kind of let their hair down and enjoy themselves at a level that they don't usually get a chance to do. troy carter is a local senator and a member of the famous zulu krewe, who parade on fat tuesday, the biggest

event in the mardi gras calendar. zulu kicks off mardi gras rolling at 7:00am, and then every other parade follows zulu. i've got my makeup on, and my wig, and my grass skirt. and when you turn onjackson avenue, if it's raining, if you're hungry, if you're tired... that is all exchanged with a euphoria that you would never, ever, ever believe. when you'd see the oceans of people, you get a burst of adrenaline that carries you for the next five hours. this is the real music, you know? this is the real thing. and it's really what many forms of music try to

imitate, that realness. i mean, that's real heart of new orleans music. it hits you, and it's real. trump: you may ask. about the coronavirus, which is very well under control in our country. we have very few people with it and the people are getting better. they're all getting better. there was no sense in new orleans that there was anything serious that was happening. we had the whole mardi gras season and there was never a single mention that there was a pandemic. maybe we had heard whispers that there was something going on somewhere else. it was something that was going on in italy at that point.

bethany boltman�*s charity provides free healthcare to 2,600 musicians in new orleans. friends of mine got sick during mardi gras. they thought they had a terrible case of the flu. but they continued to go to work because they have to have the income for theirfamilies. we were gearing up for a lot of festivals, especially in march and april, festival season. i'm sure before march, i hadn't heard about the pandemic with any level of seriousness. i realised that there was a terrible problem in new orleans because our managing director and i had been to a conference in washington, dc. and one of the speakers, he said, there are cases of covid around the country. you have got to be careful,

this is serious and it could kill you. 13 days after mardi gras, new orleans got its first case of covid—19. we were in our regular legislative session and the governor called a press conference. today, the louisiana department of health confirmed the first presumptive positive case of covid—19, commonly called coronavirus, in the state of louisiana. at that point we had very few deaths anywhere, we certainly didn't have any in louisiana. unfortunately, it quickly multiplied, and before you knew it, it was 10, and then 20, and then 30 and then 100. it was almost like wildfire. in the weeks that followed the first positive case, louisiana had the fastest growth rate of the virus in the entire world. a lot happened in a short period of time. it seems like i really heard

about it not long before i contracted it. so it wasn't something that we considered very seriously probably until that second week in march, and at that point it was a little late. and then we started seeing it go through the club. members of troy's mardi gras zulu krewe started to get sick. as real as it was to see the news and read the newspaper and hear of people, when you started hearing about people that you know, your personal friends, it was a punch to the gut like you wouldn't believe. it was terrifying to me because suddenly you're faced with a terrible virus and musicians in new orleans, they make their living in crowds.

they make their living on stages playing with people. how are you doing? just grateful for whatever we could bring in. so thankful. i thought about what would happen if our economy had to shut down and people who were already struggling to make ends meet, what was going to happen to them? new orleans is a city built on tourism and live music. the virus hitjust at the start of the festival season. for the business, january to june is where we make our nut. it's how we pay our bills, because summer slows down. it's an extremely busy and extremely lucrative time for us. derrick freeman is a musician who has lived in new for almost 30 years. multiple festivals every weekend, including the jazz and heritage festival, which is a huge festival. so we're pretty busy, normally.

but by march 18, new orleans was the epicentre of a statewide outbreak with nearly all 300 cases and seven deaths concentrated in the city. festivals started to get cancelled. we can handle that, is what the mood was at that time. then jazz fest got cancelled, french quarter festival got cancelled, everything started getting cancelled. that's when the dire, devastating mood took over. we are hereby mandating that residents stay home whenever possible. we are telling our people and our businesses to stay home. there was nobody on the street,

there were no tourists, there were no cruise ships. it was just so quiet. even after katrina, when 80% of the city was underwater, there were still pockets of music. but this was just like being on a movie set that everybody had left. at that point, there were so many people that were sick and that was so difficult. it was weird because it was a sunday. i think that day, i lost 16 of my gigs in april. a barrage of emails, like cancelled, cancelled, cancelled, postponed. watching my calendar go white. everybody was panicking andjust being like, these things aren't happening.

traumatising, is the word. the week that the city locked down, over 70,000 people applied for unemployment benefits in louisiana. the state usually receives 1,500 claims a week. we got cut off in march. we lost everything. the federal government passed a stimulus bill at the end of march to provide relief for businesses that were closed because of the pandemic. they gave us money to essentially help us get through 2.5 months. thinking that we'd be open byjuly. when it was supposed to be jazz fest time was when it really hit everybody. because your calendar is telling you, you're supposed to have four gigs today. and now everybody is either

on unemployment or trying to figure out how to get on it. then the fall gigs started getting cancelled. then it was like, wait a second, how long is this gonna last? it was a whirlwind. many of the artists unfortunately kind of live from gig to gig. they don't have a nine to five that you're going to get a cheque every weeks like clockwork. they don't work, they don't eat. the covid relief money came in. you have to demonstrate to have receipts and have paid your taxes. and many of the artists don't have that. there are just a lot of things that when you think of the guy or gal that blows a horn in a corner bar, they may not live that way. by the end of march, louisiana had over 5,200 positive cases of covid—19, with the majority concentrated in new orleans. i was under quarantine for about a month.

my dad had contracted covid not long after me, probably around the same time, so there was concern for him. i didn't know what was happening with my own health. we begin tonight with breaking news. the death of an new orleans music icon, ellis marsalis. the 85—year—old. .. my dad passed on april the 1st. i got out for his funeral. it was serious, it was really serious. and my only advice to people is, don't get it. because you never know. eight weeks after mardi gras, 30 members of the zulu krewe had tested positive for the virus and eight had died. the pain and the mixed emotions that we felt, losing zulu members, really made everybody started to rethink the significance of the role that mardi gras played in spreading covid.

in may, the centers for disease control named mardi gras as one of the few superspreader events that accelerated the spread of covid—19 in new orleans and across the country. and nowjust imagine, all that i've described to you about mardi gras, all that i've described to you about the revelry and the inhibitions being thrown to the wind, any thought of safety or caution has been extinguished with fun and joy and merriment. now overlay that with a dreaded virus. that has no smell, no visual impact. it's in the air. and thousands of people arejust breathing it in. all these parades and people out in the streets and catching beads and going to parties, and there was evidently rampant covid, which was not

being talked about at all. the centers for disease control have since said that the cases were low and seemed contained, and so federal and local authorities didn't recommend restricting large gatherings at that time. 0ur government, they didn't tell us. they didn't give us any sort of guidelines on what to do until it was too late. listen, as painful as it would have been, as unpopular as it would have been, had the leaders of new orleans known that this was a possibility, we could have cancelled mardi gras. god only knows how many lives we would have saved. to date, over 7,500 people in louisiana have died from covid—19.

live music venues are still closed after ten months. you don't want to show too much sadness in your demeanour, you know, because people are looking at us to be entertained, so we're trying to a maintain good front for that. but in our private conversations with other musician friends, it's a desperate situation, without a doubt. at the end ofjuly, the extra money put into unemployment benefits to help americans suffering the impact of the pandemic was cut. sustainability is going to be a problem for us, especially since, um, unemployment benefits and all that got cut. louisiana pays the lowest in unemployment benefits in the united states. derek is receiving just $97 a week. where i'm going to be a month from now, i have no idea. and that's the part

that's scary to me. there's no live music. there's no timeline of when live music will be allowed. the money sophie was given by the government also ran out injuly, and for six months she's been relying on her savings to save her business while she waits for a second stimulus package. it feels desperate. five new places closing every week, it's heartbreaking. friends of mine. it's devastating. and i might be that person too, in a few months. we don't know. i hope not, i'm going to fight, but it could be me. it's a cultural extinction, you know what i'm saying? cultural genocide. it'sjust not the same place, without the culture, it's just another place.

with federal support cut back, some closed music venues are handing out food to out of work musicians and hospitality workers. one of the meals for musicians things that we've been doing, since march, over 20,000 meals. we're hoping to start having shows again maybe in the spring. delfeayo has also stepped in to help, inspired by a tribute he saw to his late father. i'd driven past a music store, peaches records, and they had a sign out there that said, "thank you ellis marsalis for keeping new 0rleans music alive." and i thought about that and thought, perhaps we can get some funding to the musicians. i thought that would be a good way to pay tribute to my dad because he helped so many musicians. today, he's handing out cheques to try and help struggling

musicians. all right, y'all, i'm delfeayo marsalis. i want to thanks y'all for coming out and more importantly, thank you, y'all, for what you've all been doing so many years. the way we got it set up in here, we've got four tables inside, we've got the hand sanitiser — just come on in. so far we've gotten over 320 applications. it's tough on the musicians, but they don't complain so much. many of them are just very thankful and appreciative. what's your name? peters? the difficulty is the lack of camaraderie, and what that does for our spirit and our soul. well, i appreciate

you coming out today. from a mental health standpoint, it's really important for the musicians to get back as soon as they can. most of their lives have been designed to make people happy. and now that's taken away. i'm sure it's going to be tough for a while, no question. live music probably will be the last thing to return, and it makes sense. the musicians will be ready. but i see it, you've got to look at it, like, just give me a chance. let me get back out on the field, coach! that's what they're saying. applause.

late last year, the mayor of new orleans announced that the mardi gras parades will not take place in 2021. derek doesn't know what other festivals are happening either. i don't think any of them are going to happen, u nfortu nately. springtime, i don't see it happening. we would already be getting acceptance or rejection letters to these festivals by now. still unable to play live shows, derek is playing a live stream at his friends venue, which has been closed ten months because of the pandemic. it will be strange playing in front of a room with no people. never done it before. at least we're not disturbing the customers!

my only concern is the energy, because now we have to manufacture that energy, it's not organic. hopefully it doesn't affect the music too much. people are losing it. i mean, they need it as much as we do. it's part of the fabric of our culture. this is one of the efforts, last—ditch efforts to try to keep it going. it's to everybody's advantage for new orleans to come back. �*cause, you know, it'sjust what american culture is. it started here. it's the root, the foundation of american music. and once you crack

the foundation, you know, eventually the whole house falls down. live music will return to new orleans one day. but how long can its musicians wait? hello. we still have two severe flood warnings for the river dee, and there's more rain to come next week. in the short term, though, it's about the cold and the snow. there's more snow to come on sunday, but this time, the focus is on the southern half of the uk. we start sunday in this very cold air, temperatures widely below freezing. frost and ice will be a risk,

and as this system pushing in from the southwest bumps into that cold air, this is where we're going to see the snow. so, initially, some snow likely across parts of southwest england, wales, south of northern ireland, gradually pushing its way eastwards. right on the coasts, probablyjust rain. head inland, we could see a couple of centimetres, maybe five or six cm of snow over higher ground. further north, it's dry with some sunshine. still some wintry showers, though, persisting across the north and west of scotland. it's a cold day wherever you are. temperatures in places are going to struggle to get much above freezing, and this area of snow gradually starts to ease away through sunday evening. we'll keep some showers going across southwest england. further snow showers pushing into scotland, northern ireland and the far north of england. it's another very cold, very frosty night. ice once again will be a risk, with temperatures well below freezing. so, this is the bigger picture as we start the new week. it's a fairly quiet affair, but you'll notice this system here just sliding its way southwards. that's going to generate some snow showers initially across southern scotland and northern england,

pushing into parts of wales and the midlands through the afternoon. elsewhere, we'll see some sunshine, wintry showers still for the north and west of scotland, but for most, it's a dry, cold day — four or five celsius. but then we do start to see some changes from the west as we head into tuesday. this frontal system starting to arrive from the atlantic, it's not making very fast progress, so what we'll see through tuesday is the cloud increasing across the west, bringing some rain and perhaps some snow on its leading edge into parts of northern ireland and wales. further east, probably staying mainly dry, but the cloud will increase. we'll start to see the temperatures recovering across the western side of the uk. further east, still a cold day in the best of the sunshine probably for eastern scotland and the northern isles. so, here we are midweek where this system is still very much with us. notice that the isobars are getting closer together, so the winds will be starting to pick up. and that rain will make further progress eastwards through wednesday, initially quite heavy and persistent across southwest england, wales and northern ireland, then arriving into parts

of northwest england, through the midlands. again, further east, probably dry. stilljust about in the cold air, but notice those temperatures further west are getting close to double figures. the low pressure by the time we get to thursday is to the northwest of the uk. again, some tightly packed isobars, so a windier day. heavy and persistent rain across parts of southern scotland, northern england, into northern ireland. just bear in mind that the ground is saturated, those rivers will still be sensitive to further rain. there'll be plenty of showers across the southern half of the uk in between probably some sunshine, but thursday looks to be the windier day of the week and likely to see some gales along western coasts. but look at the temperatures widely across england and wales, ten to 12 celsius, more like seven across scotland. for the end of the week, these areas of low pressure keep pushing in from the atlantic, so it's going to stay unsettled, further spells of rain. but actually, through the weekend, we start to see a return of that colder air extending across the uk, so where we have any precipitation, that is likely to be falling as snow in places,

particularly across the north of the uk. so, we start the week cold. it'll turn milder, wetter and windier, still unsettled by the weekend. once again, we are back in that cold air. that's all from me, bye—bye.

senior doctors call for a change to the pfizer vaccine roll—out, saying the long delay between doses is "difficult to justify". the british medical association wants the gap between jabs to be reduced by half. at least it would be in keeping with international best—practice guidance. there is no other nation, internationally, that has adopted a 12—week delay. despite the calls, the government is standing firm with its strategy, arguing it could save lives. also tonight... the prime minister and president biden speak for the first time since the inauguration — and pledge to work together towards a "green recovery". in russia, thousands are arrested,

as supporters of the jailed opposition leader alexei navalny take to the streets.